Remembering Sir Kishan : Death of my "Inspiration"

By Jenni *

"Poetry is the spontaneous outflow of powerful emotions - William Wordsworth",

I learned this beautiful definition of poetry from our late dear teacher Sir Th Kishan, on the first day of his class and it still rings in my ear.

To many, sir Th. Kishan may be remembered in great many ways. But for me, he was the 1st teacher who really inspired me! Memories of him are still crystal clear and for me he still lives on. It's still hard for me to acknowledge the fact that he left us for the heavenly abode.

Can still remember the first day he came to our class, he was so casual in appearance with his faded black jeans and collared shirt but when he spoke, it seemed as if precious beads rained from his mouth. I was awestruck with his talent, skill and his rare inspiring qualities. I felt so proud that he belonged to Manipur! He had a unique style of speaking and used to end each sentence with "..aaa".

Every word he spoke seemed precious and I never missed jotting down on my notebook. Though he was an English teacher, name any subject and he could enlighten you with great mastery and skill over the topic. Even the naughtiest boys in the class would remain pin drop silence in his class because none could risk missing his valuable lectures.

He wasn't a biased teacher, and teacher's pet doesn't exist in his dictionary. A "classless" class was what we had with him, a Marxian dream. He was the teacher for all, because he gave equal emphasis to both failures and toppers. Every student was his favorite! Not even once did he scold the class. He would just give his ultimatum "to listen or to leave in peace" in his most dignified manner.

So perfect was his English that once we went to the staffroom intentionally to make some bookish queries in Manipuri because we were very curious to know how his Manipuri would sound like, silly girls that we were.

My favorite prose and poetry from my plus one English literature was "Drought" and "La belle dame sans merci", both taught by sir Kishan. He immortalized the central character of drought Gafur and his son-like bull Mahesh and these two characters are forever imprinted in my heart .He enlightened us via the story on how poverty, hunger and thirst drove a usually calm and composed man to rage killing his son-like bull unintentionally.

He taught the chapter with such vigor, intensity and interest that it left an everlasting impact on my young mind about the grim and harsh reality of a feudal society and a society where there is no equal distribution of wealth. I thought" sir, you don’t deserve to be here, you deserve to inspire greater masses".

La belle dame sand merci, written by John Keats, one of my favorite poets, was really a tough poem to understand. Many of our English teacher tried teaching but there was always some confusions in interpreting their teaching. Sir Kishan had quit teaching at our institution but he came back one day just to clear our doubts and we requested him for "la belle dame sans merci". The clarity with which he expressed the ideas of the poem really mesmerized us like the way la belle mesmerized the lovesick knights and prince.

Many of the students including me admired him a lot for his rare qualities. After he left our school, we inquired about him and came to know that he was selling petrol as he was still in his struggling days. But we knew that it would get over soon because he was a borne genius, a storehouse of knowledge with an amazing personality.

I met him once at Imphal airport with his wife and their little girl. I and my friend were surprised to see him after a long time but he spotted us and called us. He told us that he was going to Delhi for an interview. That was the last time I saw this great teacher of ours. Latter we heard that he was appointed as a lecturer at DM College and then as an assistant professor at MU, then he cleared the coveted MPSC exam.

Alas! his hard work brought him success in many ways and they killed him so brutally when he was just miles away from his destination. Knowing him for the brief one year at school, and after all the efforts and struggles he made in life, I realized that all he wanted was to erase the vices in our society and help our impoverished society in his little ways, a dream many of us dream about but fail to implement because of various constraints.

"Those who are very good and loved by God die early", maybe God loved him a lot but such a dignified person doesn't deserve such a tragedy. He was the inspiration for great many students like me. No matter how savagely they killed him, he died a martyr and his legacy will continue because there are still yet many people who would follow his footsteps including me.

I just wish that the hue and cries over the killings won't yet become another vicious cycle like those that happened in the past and stop after a span of time, with the criminals going scot-free and ultimate losers being the victim's family. I hope that the matter be looked upon practically, and any communal clashes be prevented. But truly speaking, human society is not blessed with great human beings like Sir Kishan often, we lost a thousand lives with his death and we lost a precious gem!

I strongly condemn the barbaric killings of Sir Kishan, A Rajen and Y Token. Such a crime should not be repeated ever again in the human history, but we couldn't be so sure because dirty politics and negligence on the part of government may dump justice yet again.

I request the government to wake up and stop weaving million dollar dreams. Please consider the life of every citizen as precious as your own family and please don't equate - life with some compensation money. Please remember the oath you took on our behalf to protect us, please help the good citizens to thrive in this state so that we could rebuild a better Manipur.

This issue shouldn't be solved with some compensation money and curfew, and the culprits shouldn't go scot-free. Hope the government would keep in mind that "action speaks louder than words" this time so that we could regain our faith on the government again.

MAY THE SOUL OF OUR RESPECTED TEACHER SIR KISHAN, A RAJEN AND Y TOKEN REST IN PEACE AND MAY GOD GIVE THE NECESSARY STRENGTH TO THEIR FAMILY TO FACE THIS HARD TIME.